Who tempted Satan into bad ways.

[jimuk]

Hi guys and girls.

Just a thought, but with Satan being such a bad spirit, where did the temptation into such bad ways come from.

I myself have no answers on this, maybe its to deep but i have this in my head and wondered if anyone else had any views on said topic.

Mods if this is to much please feel free to remove.

[deseretgov]

Nobody tempted him. He has agency too. He chose the wrong path himself.

[jimuk]

Hi Deseretgov.

I thought (i may be wrong) that there was only good in heaven, and that evil/bad things were put into our thoughts by satan (whilst we are on earth) wouldent satan still have had to be lead down the wrong path by something tempting him along the way, by planting those bad thoughts into him. Surely being a spirit child of Heavenly father he wouldent have come into existance with these things, but who knows the full workings of heaven, not me thats for sure.

Thats why i thought this thread would be going to deep.

[deseretgov]

Well if you think about it it wasn't only Satan that when down the wrong path. 1/3 of our spirit brothers and sisters went down the wrong path. That's a pretty big percentage. But even in the Pre-mortal life there still had to be the option of evil. If there was no option of evil then we could only choose good and we would have had no free agency. So evil was possible, it just took Satan's pride to break away.

This is the way I imagine it. Lucifer(pre-mortal Satan) admired our Father in Heaven. He knows that our potential is to become like Him. He loves our Heavenly Father but his attitude has a slight mixture of pride in it, maye a bit of jelousy. But not enough of either to be sinning.

A council in Heaven is called. Heavenly Father asks for someone to be the Saviour. Jehovah stands and accepts. Lucifer thinks that he can impress God by presenting a plan where all His children can be saved. Obviously the exact mentatlity of Lucifer isn't known. He thinks that an adequate reward would be to be granted all of God's power. God refuses his plan, but because of Lucifer's choice/attitude/etc. and his pride, which increases, he doesn't back down.

It's a very tragic, human story. It doesn't require a temptor just the right combination of attitude, choice, mentality, etc. Also we don't know what was exactly said at the council in Heaven. Since God was asking for someone to be a Saviour it was obviosuly explained that we would fall. It would also have been explained that the cause of the fall would have been somebody tempting Adama and Eve. Then that someone would continue to tempt humanity throughout history.

Just some thoughts.

[MarginOfError]

This is a very interesting question to me, and one I've given lots of thought. In fact, because of this question, I've done some informal studies into the characteristics of Lucifer and what makes him tick. Honestly, the guy fascinates me. And I think people would be surprised how much they can relate to Lucifer.

From here on out please take everything I say as speculation. I've not got references and resources collected to defend much of what I say. Also, feel free to nitpick at it. I'm not going to attach myself to these thoughts unless I can tie them down with appropriate references.

Many of us have grown up with the idea that we are tempted into sin, which naturally leads to the conclusion that Satan must have been tempted. I'm not sure I buy into this. We were intelligent beings even before mortality. We had the ability to think, reason, and postulate. Why wouldn't we have been able to brainstorm alternative plans for the Plan of Salvation? It'd be like your bishop saying, "let's set up some tables for our chinese food activity" and you saying, "wouldn't it be more fitting if we sat on the ground?"

I also believe that as intelligent beings, we had desires and passions. It so happened, that Lucifer liked to feel important. And the ultimate in importance is having people worship you. The thing he coveted most was to be worshipped by others. He also seems to have wanted it right away. His passion for power and status corrupted him and he chose to pursue it.

There are other explanations I could offer that dive into weird tangents that aren't appropriate for this medium. But the above is one such possibility.

So if it's possible that Lucifer required no temptation in order to sin, where does that leave us? We often say that we are tempted into sin, and we get this vision of a little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. But isn't it also possible that we give Satan way too much credit for our own sins? I think we may choose to do plenty of wrongs on our own without any of his influence.

The other interesting conclusion I've drawn about Satan is that he really doesn't care about any of us. We sometimes hear it said that Satan wants us to be miserable like him, and I don't know that I believe that directly. Satan is power hungry. He wants people under his control. He wants people to obey him. It just so happens that if he can get you to follow him, you'll be miserable.

[MrsHart]

Nobody tempted him. He has agency too. He chose the wrong path himself.

Yep. I believe he was led astray by his own pride, jealous, ego, vanity, etc.

[SeattleTruthSeeker]

In my honest opinion, the temptation of power and glory was what he sought after. He wanted to not become like our Heavenly Father, but wanted to be Our Heavenly Father and the rejection he received at the premortal council was what drove him.

The temptation of power and prestige. Vanity.

[jimuk]

Ah i see, i could therefor allow myself to fall from the lds faith because of my pride and vanity and it would be my own doing and would have nothing to do with temptation of Satan, just that i have been told since joining the church to be on the lookout for that old deceiver Satan that would try to tempt me from the church.

This is not a sarcastic response, please do not think of it that way, just trying to get my head around things (getting a headache now) lol.

So do you think we can be Bad/evil without satans help. If not then i feel Satan must have had some help along the way, but from where i could not even hazard a guess.

[Elgama]

I don't need Satan to tempt me to sin - he just makes it easier to justify it. I can choose good or evil entirely without him

-Charley

[rameumptom]

Satan was a powerful figure in the premortal existence, among the spirits of men. He saw that God's plan would prevent many from achieving celestial glory, and that all would have to suffer. In such circumstances, I can see him becoming somewhat disgruntled at first, at God's seemingly uncaring attitude towards his own children. If he is God, then why can't he exalt them all without any suffering?

With time, Satan would have been convinced that his alternatives were not just good, but superior to anything God could ever come up with. With the final meetings of the Council in Heaven, the only choice God gave to us was "Whom Shall I Send?" (Abr 3). We were not asked our opinion of God's plan, only who would be the Savior.

Two stood forth (Moses 4:1-4, Abr 3). Jesus said he would do God's will and push forth the plan of Agency, wherein we would risk all for exaltation. Lucifer offered himself as Savior, but wanted changes to the plan: save everyone without suffering and struggle, promise security and safety, and since no one could become like Heavenly Father without such struggle, we would change the terms of salvation by making Lucifer God, since everyone could become like he was.

Such security issues even plague us today, as people in our nation argue over levels of freedom versus security.

[jimuk]

I am programmed in some way as to love everyone, how about Satan, if i could hate him then i could hate anybody, but Satan is also my brother, i cannot hate him, i know he is not to be followed, i know there is only one path that leads back home, so do not get me wrong here guys, but i can not learn to love everyone but with one exception, that would be impossible for anyone "wouldn't it" lol.

What you think

[rameumptom]

It becomes a challenge to us when Jesus commands us to forgive everyone and to love everyone. Think of who that includes.

That includes Hitler.

That includes Stalin.

That includes the guy who has molested several children in your neighborhood.

We hate the sin, but love the enemy. We pray for those who would spitefully use us. We walk two miles where they would compel us to do only one. We turn the other cheek.

Not easy things. But then, to be a true spiritual hero means one must do the toughest things of all: bury our weapons of war and hate, and become peacemakers. We seek to heal others, and save those who seem to be unable to be saved. We love them.

How does this apply to demons, who are out of the realm of being saved? We realize how sad a condition they are in, and then strive to serve God in saving His other children.

[Everstrivin]

I would like to just pose my initial thoughts about this topic. I don't have time right now to look up all the references required to back this up. I could be wrong, but here goes...

I believe this life is not just a time to get a body and learn how to deal with it. We are also here for the purpose of learning how to deal with our own spiritual, physical and emotional yearnings (the body does add a few of those that we were not familiar with, thus the need to come to earth). Heaven will be much like this life except we will be glorified and not under the influence of Satan. As a result of having agency, which we will always have, we have the ability to think bad thoughts. It is our job to figure out how to decrease those thoughts until they don't happen any more. The mercy of God to send us away from his presence to be able to think bad thoughts and figure out how to deal with them is great.

My vision of the celestial glory involves continual repentance. Someone who has shown that they will choose the right will receive a celestial body. With a celestial body you would be able to do anything. God would be giving us the ultimate gift of trust. We will always make mistakes, but what gave us the right to a celestial body is that we had shown a tendency to repent when we make mistakes. (Repentance means to improve oneself).

Because sin was and will be possible in the celestial world, with no outside influence, it was not only possible that Satan along with 1/3 of our siblings would fall, but also it will be possible for us to fall as well. I imagine that in the celestial world without the added influence of the devil it will be easier, but we will still need to behave ourselves.

I hope this makes sense. My belief stems primarily from the concept of work and how eternity without the satisfaction obtained through diligent and hard work would be empty. Work makes accomplishment meaningful. This consistency with what the church teaches about eternity, God and what we can experience here on earth is something that really strengthens my testimony.

[deseretgov]

Heaven will be much like this life except we will be glorified and not under the influence of Satan. As a result of having agency, which we will always have, we have the ability to think bad thoughts. It is our job to figure out how to decrease those thoughts until they don't happen any more. The mercy of God to send us away from his presence to be able to think bad thoughts and figure out how to deal with them is great.

This is the best quote of the entire topic! In the Celetsial Kingdom we will all have the ability to choose good or evil, but exaltation required that we learn to only choose good. i think the biggest learning and progressing experience will be in the Celetsial Kingdom. This life is just like a basic starter course. In the pre-mortal life we learned the rules of the game. In this life we are learning "Rules of the game, Practical application of." The Celestial Kingdom is where we will actually play the game.

[jimuk]

Well Brothers and Sisters, again Satan shows his hand, and again he helps to strenghen our testimonies, When he does bad towards us, when he sends his troops in to beguile us, and ridicule and taunt us, it only serves to strengthen our/heavenly fathers cause.

As i have said before " I will worry when Ol nick leaves us alone" It would mean that " The church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints" was not the one true church that is on the earth today, but i know it is, and it dug me out from the pit i was in.

How frustrated Satan must get, for the harder he tries to destroy what we know is of heaven, the stronger we get, when he sends his troops to destroy what we have, the stronger our testimonies become.

Bit of an ol sour puss aint he.

He can never ever take away what you have been blessed with by your father in heaven, he may destroy your bodies but he will not destroy your love and devotion to your father who looks down upon you from the heavens above and is well pleased.

[debi56]

While I was growing up and learning about temple work for the dead. I could not understand how anyone could refuse the Gospel once they were deceased, to me they were out from under Satans' influence. My brother told me that we will still have our free agency and there are those that can decide to accept or reject the Gospel. I don't fully understand this but somethings I can accept to not fully understand right now and know someday I will.

[MarginOfError]

I am programmed in some way as to love everyone, how about Satan, if i could hate him then i could hate anybody, but Satan is also my brother, i cannot hate him, i know he is not to be followed, i know there is only one path that leads back home, so do not get me wrong here guys, but i can not learn to love everyone but with one exception, that would be impossible for anyone "wouldn't it" lol.

What you think

If you really want to hate Satan and stick it to him, do the last thing in the world he wants you to do--learn to love him :)

I love all the paradoxes of the Gospel.

[daenvgiell]

I thought it was because he was annoyed (or whatever you want to call it) because his plan didn't get chosen, which meant he wouldn't get the glory for all the people getting back to dwell with Heavenly Father, so he rebelled on that, and now because he is unhappy, he wants everyone else to be unhappy too, and if he can't dwell with HF then he wants as many people as he can get to be faced with the same thing.

[Guest HEthePrimate]

Just as most of us don't need much, if any, encouragement from Satan to sin, so I believe he is perfectly capable of doing it without somebody else's urging him to.

[lilered]

The original question raised another question for me. Is the Satan of this world, the same Satan of another world created prior to this one. Or another way to ask the question is there only one Satan for all the worlds created, or a separate one for each world created in the Galaxy?

[Teancum18]

Hi guys and girls.

Just a thought, but with Satan being such a bad spirit, where did the temptation into such bad ways come from.

I myself have no answers on this, maybe its to deep but i have this in my head and wondered if anyone else had any views on said topic.

Mods if this is to much please feel free to remove.

I have wondered about this a lot the past three years. Roommates and I have been in heated arguments regarding the topic. Not heated towards each other, but heated because we'd get frustrated that no matter how many ideas we could come up with together, we could not pinpoint an answer.

Nobody tempted him. He has agency too. He chose the wrong path himself.

Well if you think about it it wasn't only Satan that when down the wrong path. 1/3 of our spirit brothers and sisters went down the wrong path. That's a pretty big percentage. But even in the Pre-mortal life there still had to be the option of evil. If there was no option of evil then we could only choose good and we would have had no free agency. So evil was possible, it just took Satan's pride to break away.

This is the way I imagine it. Lucifer(pre-mortal Satan) admired our Father in Heaven. He knows that our potential is to become like Him. He loves our Heavenly Father but his attitude has a slight mixture of pride in it, maye a bit of jelousy. But not enough of either to be sinning.

A council in Heaven is called. Heavenly Father asks for someone to be the Saviour. Jehovah stands and accepts. Lucifer thinks that he can impress God by presenting a plan where all His children can be saved. Obviously the exact mentatlity of Lucifer isn't known. He thinks that an adequate reward would be to be granted all of God's power. God refuses his plan, but because of Lucifer's choice/attitude/etc. and his pride, which increases, he doesn't back down.

It's a very tragic, human story. It doesn't require a temptor just the right combination of attitude, choice, mentality, etc. Also we don't know what was exactly said at the council in Heaven. Since God was asking for someone to be a Saviour it was obviosuly explained that we would fall. It would also have been explained that the cause of the fall would have been somebody tempting Adama and Eve. Then that someone would continue to tempt humanity throughout history.

Just some thoughts.

The idea that nobody tempted Lucifer (he wasn't known as Satan at the time), is one that cannot go unconsidered. Unfortunately, this doesn't suffice for me. If it is the correct answer, sweet; but I don't think it's the fullest answer.

Yep. I believe he was led astray by his own pride, jealous, ego, vanity, etc.

When I do consider the very strong possibility that nobody tempted Lucifer, this is among the explanations I consider for how he did lead himself astray.

In my honest opinion, the temptation of power and glory was what he sought after. He wanted to not become like our Heavenly Father, but wanted to be Our Heavenly Father and the rejection he received at the premortal council was what drove him.

The temptation of power and prestige. Vanity.

This is getting really close to what I believe really happened; lust for power, vanity, and self-grandiosity.

Now we get to what I've been building up with all these quotes. I believe that Lucifer tempted himself to walk away, however, I still believe that there was an author of evil who came prior to the council in Heaven that determined the plan for our world, and perhaps others.

I don't know how to support this without going into details that can only be discussed in certain places. So let me say it like this. When Christ was asked in the New Testament why He did the things He did, He responded, "Everything I have done, I've seen my Father do." Speculation suggests that He was insinuating that Heavenly Father was a Savior for a world before ours. So that would mean that it was prior to the mission of Christ, therefore suggesting that these events happened prior to the fall of Lucifer. So that must mean that there was a Satan before Lucifer, right?? Maybe that's not what the notion proves; nevertheless, it makes sense.

Regardless, I do believe that there was a tempter or influencing power of evil origin--existing prior to the eternal round that makes up our existence--that played a part in Lucifer's fall; certainly helping the dichotomy that existed within Lucifer's pride and lust for power.

Just my two cents worth!

T18

Edited November 17, 2008 by Teancum18

[japacific]

If Satan can be tempted without there being a tempter, then why do we need a Satan? And if people are tempted by power, prestige, vanity etc anyway, then what exactly is Satan doing?

[Teancum18]

If Satan can be tempted without there being a tempter, then why do we need a Satan? And if people are tempted by power, prestige, vanity etc anyway, then what exactly is Satan doing?

That's exactly what I am getting at!!! There had to be a Satan from the very beginning... If there is an author of righteousness and of evil, then who is the original author of evil?? Who came before Lucifer?? Just questions I am posing. I realize the scriptures provide some of the answer to this, but I am trying to dig deeper and further back than our eternal round.